1. Field
Various communication systems may benefit from congestion management. For example, code division multiple access wireless networks may benefit from identifying and tracking of congestion.
2. Description of the Related Art
Growing traffic, like for example, smartphone traffic and machine to machine (M2M) device traffic, is expected to strain currently deployed core networks leading to the need for congestion relief Conventional standards, however, do not provide a reliable way for radio access network (RAN) operators to determine when core network congestion is occurring, for example before a network failure occurs. Conventionally, mobile internet protocol (MIP) registration release signaling over A11 is used to gracefully release packet data sessions. Upon receiving an A11 registration request message containing the lifetime field set to 0, the packet data serving node (PDSN)/high rate packet data (HRPD) serving gateway (HSGW) can send an A11 registration reply message containing a ‘code’ field set to ‘registration accepted’. The RAN currently stores the MIP registration failure codes which are later downloaded by operators to detect any potential problems in the network. However, when sessions are gracefully released due to core network congestion there is no way for an operator of a RAN to determine this.
Another conventional method that gracefully releases existing packet sessions can comprise the A11 registration update message, which triggers A11 MIP registration signaling to release the session. While the A11 update message does comprise a cause code, it is not used when the A11 notification message is sent. The A11 notification message may be used to initiate the release of multiple sessions at the PDSN/HSGW based on priority levels whereas the A11 registration update signaling conventionally must be sent for each packet data session making it inefficient for congestion relief control. An A11 notification sent by the PDSN can trigger the RAN to release the session. The PCF can then compare priorities before initiating session release.
Moreover when packet sessions are ungracefully released due to serious core network congestion, or incoming sessions initiated by a user equipment (UE) are blocked by the RAN before the session can be created, no failure codes comprising registration codes are generated.